In brief

Police have blamed the anti-peace-process New IRA for the killing of Lyra McKee after a handgun aimed at their officers were fired indiscriminately in Londonderry’s Creggan estate.

Detectives believe the violence was orchestrated in response to an earlier search by officers aimed at averting imminent trouble associated with this week’s anniversary of the Easter Rising.

The New IRA is an amalgam of a series of armed groups opposed to the peace process. It claimed responsibility for a number of parcel bombs sent to London and Glasgow recently. The threat posed to police in Northern Ireland is high.

In the past, trouble has coincided with dissident republican commemoration of the battle for Irish independence every Easter.

‘This is a dark day’

Anti-peace-process sentiment in Northern Ireland’s second city has been demonstrated in recent attempts to bomb the courthouse and the calling off of a community youth event after police were invited.

Deputy Chief Constable Stephen Martin condemned those whose sole purpose in life, he said, was to try to attack his officers and destroy the peace.

He said: “Today is Good Friday and it’s a cruel twist in our history that 21 years ago the majority of people in Northern Ireland signed up to the Belfast/Good Friday Agreement yet here we are today mourning the loss of a talented young woman, a young journalist who was also a daughter, a sister and a partner. This is a dark day.”

Ms McKee was killed days after the Public Prosecution Service for Northern Ireland (PPS) announced that a British soldier was to be prosecuted for the murder of a teenager, Daniel Hegarty, who was shot dead during the Troubles.

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